"The impact - I mean, it's just not sensible to transport cane nearly 100 kilometres, it just doesn't make ecological sense. It's not sustainable, that sort of idea."

At stake in the argument between Tableland growers and their mill owner, the Thai-controlled MSF Sugar, is the right to sell raw sugar into the export market.

The fallout from the growers' decision to do a deal with a rival milling company rather than allow MSF to sell their sugar continues to reverberate in company boardrooms and cane fields across Queensland. But now residents fear they will be left to suffer the consequences of the corporate wrangling and are appealing to all parties for a better outcome.

"We're the innocent bystanders, but we're going to cop the results and it's really a terrific imposition, for six months of the year, on the local people and the local environment. There's no saving grace in it at all," Mr Russell said.

Mackay Sugar CEO Quinton Hildebrand has indicated previously his door is open to further negotiations. But it's not clear if MSF Sugar, still smarting from losing control of the cane supply in the first place, would be prepared to crush it on behalf of its rival.

Meanwhile, residents like Melissa Bloor are angry no consideration has been given to the impact of so many extra trucks on local towns.

Ms Bloor owns a business in the main street of Mt Molloy and her children attend the nearby school.

"I would have preferred to have been considered. We're quite reasonable people, we do understand economic impacts are important, but that is a lot (of trucks), it is a very big increase and so it does raise alarms for us."